In the runup to Election Day, Donald Trump had kind words for Washington state.
“I have so many friends in the great state of Washington or Washington state. Any way you want to say it? We say it lots of different ways. But it’s the same great place. It’s an incredible place,” he said during a call to build support for now-defeated Republican congressional candidate Jerrod Sessler.
He also suggested that Washington is “getting a little more conservative every year,” adding: “They’ve had some problems out there that they wouldn’t have with more conservative values.”
“We’re not just waking up yesterday thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a Trump administration coming. We need to get ready for it,’” Ferguson said after Election Day. “There has been a lot of work for many, many months from my team to prepare.”
Nick Brown, who won election to replace Ferguson as attorney general, echoed that view. “We will be prepared for whatever comes and do everything in our power to defend the rights of Washingtonians, the people of this great state, and to make sure that when there is an illegal action, that we look very closely to see if we can bring a case,” he said.
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Now that he’s president-elect, Trump and his Republican allies are staking out a platform that would move the country in a sharply different direction, one that would be at odds with many of the priorities of the Democratic-controlled state government here in Washington.
How exactly Trump’s plans will affect the state and the Pacific Northwest will depend on whether regulations and agency actions are derailed by lawsuits, what the administration and Republican leaders decide to prioritize in Congress, and how state laws counterbalance federal policy changes.
Here we take a look at four policy areas where Trump-backed plans could have an effect in Washington and what advocates on those issues are watching for and prepared to sue over.
Immigration
Washington is home to an estimated 246,000 immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal authorization and about 13,500 people covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Those who qualify for DACA were brought into the country as children without legal authorization but allowed to stay and work here.
Presidents have broad power to shape immigration policies under the Constitution and federal law. During the campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to “begin the largest deportation operation in American history” on his first day and to “eliminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration.” He also said he wants to end DACA.
He’s not provided details on these policies, but any attempt at large-scale deportations would be met with legal challenges alongside logistical hurdles.
In his first term, Trump authorized the National Guard to assist U.S. Customs and Border Protection along the southern U.S. border but not perform law enforcement activities. Under his order, governors retained the power to approve deployment of individuals from their state.
President Joe Biden tapped the National Guard to help with border security and in October 2022 Washington sent 70 people. And former presidents Barack Obama and George Bush did so too. In 2006, Washington sent 300 members to patrol the Arizona-Mexico border for a month.
Trump has also said he wants to emulate a program President Dwight Eisenhower carried out in 1954 that resulted in deportation of more than 1 million migrants to Mexico. It was known as “Operation Wetback,” a racial epithet widely used at the time.
If he tries to end birthright citizenship, a protection contained in the U.S. Constitution, Trump couldn’t go it alone, experts say. This would likely require a constitutional amendment proposed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states.
Trump’s plans have stirred fears in agricultural communities in eastern Washington with sizable Hispanic populations and where immigrants make up a key block of the workforce.
In Tacoma, the Northwest ICE Processing Center, a privately-run immigration detention facility has drawn scrutiny from activists who want to see it shut down and from Democratic members of Washington’s congressional delegation. The state has been fighting in court with The GEO Group, the private operator of the center, over how much power Washington has to conduct inspections and set standards around conditions at the site. GEO’s stock surged after Trump won the election.
The detention center is one of the largest immigration detention facilities in the country, with a capacity for about 1,575 people.
Brenda Rodríguez López and Catalina Velasquez, executive directors of the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, said they expect an “emboldened Trump administration and right-wing political movement” that will subject immigrant communities to “inhumane, anti-immigrant rhetoric and egregious xenophobic policies.”
In a statement, the group’s leaders said they will continue to build on the programs and support the network has established since it was formed in 2016, shortly after Trump was first elected.
That includes hosting pro bono legal clinics and training for immigrants to better understand their rights and forming rapid response groups to support a potential increase in apprehensions during Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins.
“We are committed to protecting the past wins that we have advanced as a movement in the last eight years and we will continue fighting for a world where undocumented immigrants have full political and economic rights and access to the resources we need to thrive,” López and Velasquez said in a statement. “We are keeping our hopes and spirits high because we are still here thriving as a community after Trump left office, and we will remain as a community after he departs.”
– Laurel Demkovich, Jerry Cornfield
Environment
Washington is known for stringent environmental laws and aggressive policies to combat climate change. These are areas where the state clashed with Trump during his first term.
Federal decisions can significantly affect land, water, air quality, and wildlife in the state, and there’s plenty to watch on this front as Trump takes office. The federal government’s role as a land manager alone is substantial: about 12.1 million acres, or roughly a quarter of Washington’s land, are managed by federal agencies.
This month, the Biden administration is planning to release the first-ever proposed amendments to the Northwest Forest Plan. That’s the landmark 1994 agreement covering about 24 million acres of forest across Washington, Oregon, and California that restricted logging of old-growth trees and established strategies for protecting the northern spotted owl and other species.
The planned amendments focus on areas such as heightened wildfire risk, climate change, and improving tribal inclusion. Due to required rule-making timelines, these changes will not be finalized before President Joe Biden leaves office. That means the incoming Trump administration will inherit the process and could take it in a new direction.
“That opens up a whole bunch of issues about federal forest management,” said Kristen Boyles, a managing attorney in the northwest office of Earthjustice.
Hydropower dams and fish recovery on the Snake River could also surface during Trump’s next term. Late last year, the Biden administration announced a pact with four tribes in the region and the states of Oregon and Washington that is intended to restore salmon and other fish runs while looking at the possibility of eventually breaching four dams on the river.
Washington Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse and Rep.-elect Michael Baumgartner, are critical of this plan and staunchly oppose moves toward tearing down the dams. With the new framework in place, environmental groups agreed to a 10-year pause in long-running litigation surrounding the Snake River. If the Trump administration scraps or neglects the deal, court fights could resume.
“If the federal government walks from that, it’ll be over. It’ll be a great shame,” said Boyles.
An environmental battle during Trump’s first term was over Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. This part of the law gives states sway over approving projects that could affect water quality. It was key in Washington’s 2017 denial of a massive coal export terminal along the Columbia River. In other parts of the country, natural gas pipelines have been blocked.
The first Trump administration — with backing from lawmakers in states that produce gas, oil and coal — revised regulations to rein in state power under Section 401.
Washington’s attorney general, and now governor-elect, Bob Ferguson played a leading role in fighting the Trump administration’s Section 401 rule the last time around. The regulations were cast aside as the Biden administration issued its own rewrite. That version drew a still-active legal challenge from Republican states. With Trump returning to office, controversy over Section 401 is likely to grind on.
Reintroduction of grizzly bears in North Cascades National Park could also claw its way back onto the environmental agenda. In 2020, the Trump administration halted a grizzly restoration plan for the area amid opposition from ranchers, farmers, and others. The Biden administration restarted the process.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and National Park Service decided to move ahead with plans to locate three to seven grizzly bears in the park every summer for five to 10 years until reaching a population of 25 bears. Here again, the feds could decide to reverse course if grizzly opponents can find support with Trump in office.
– Bill Lucia
LGBTQ+ rights
In Washington, state law explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation in restaurants, hotels and other spaces serving the public. Strong privacy laws are intended to protect transgender youth in crisis — and the state’s shield law prevents less LGBTQ+ friendly states from being able to access medical records for patients seeking care in Washington.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Washington since 2012, three years before the federal courts came to the same conclusion. And just this year, the state required inclusion of LGBTQ+ history and perspectives in public school curriculum.
Federal policies from a second Trump administration may be at odds with the state’s protections. Trump has promised to ban federal funding of gender-affirming care the first day he takes office, for example. That could potentially affect whether Medicaid patients in Washington will be covered, even though the state’s Gender Affirming Treatment Act requires health insurers to cover that care.
“We don’t know what the viable legal challenges would be. It’s just all unknown, but what I do know is that we will use every tool that we have to fight against those bans, if there are to be bans,” Leavitt said.
He compared the impact of potential bans on gender-affirming care to how abortion access has played out across the country amid the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Leavitt worries, too, about the impact of anti-LGBTQ+ and particularly anti-trans rhetoric on Washington’s queer and trans community, pointing to a trans student in Bellingham who was attacked by other teens in October. The incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime.
“We can’t begin to understand that impact for the wellbeing of trans youth who should just get to be kids,” Leavitt said.
Advocates are hoping to see lawmakers repeal or roll back a state parental rights law that partially took effect in June after a judge blocked parts of the law that give parents access to all of their children’s medical and mental health counseling records.
These grants are just a piece of the housing and homelessness puzzle in Washington, but many local governments rely on them to get projects over the finish line.
So far this year, Washington cities and counties received $44.1 million through the Community Development Block Grants program. The state government received another $13.1 million. Under the HOME program, Washington’s local governments have received more than $24 million in grants this year.
“Cuts will result in real people and real projects either not getting built or closing down, which further contributes to the number of people living outside and the number of people that are housing cost-burden,” said Tedd Kelleher, the Washington Department of Commerce’s housing division policy manager.
The federal government’s current level of funding for housing is not nearly enough to meet the need, said Michele Thomas, director of policy and advocacy at the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. Further cuts could be a blow to local communities trying to increase affordable housing and to state lawmakers already facing a budget deficit come January, she added.
“If there are rollbacks to the minimal investments that the federal government currently makes in housing and homelessness, that will be devastating,” Thomas said.
On land use regulations, Trump has said he supports opening federal lands to housing.
Much of the federal land in Washington is in rural areas. Thomas said it will be interesting to see how any federal changes to allow for more housing in these areas could work with the state’s Growth Management Act, which helps local governments determine where they can increase housing density and where they should protect rural land.
Republicans’ platform for affordability identifies housing affordability – particularly for homeowners – as a top priority. Their plan includes reducing mortgage rates by cutting inflation, creating tax incentives for homeownership and cutting “unnecessary regulations that raise housing costs.”
Concerns with affordability, particularly housing costs, was central to many people’s decision to vote this year, Thomas said, and federal and state governments need to remember that.
“It’s incumbent on every elected official to take that to heart,” Thomas said. “Voters across the country are demanding action to address the struggles that so many people are facing with keeping a roof over their heads.”
– Laurel Demkovich
Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on Facebook and X.
